SCHEDULES OF THE PAST: 1992-1993 Sundays

On Mondays, I take a look at schedules from yesteryear. Here's a look at Sundays in the 1992-93 season!

ABC	7:00	7:30	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Sep	Life Goes On		America’s Funniest Home Videos	America’s Funniest People	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar	America’s Funniest Home Videos	America’s Funniest People	Day One
Apr		Dinosaurs
May

ABC started the 1992-93 season with a familiar lineup: Life Goes On followed by an unscripted comedy hour and then a movie. Life Goes On had a long run for a show that never made much of a dent in the ratings but its fourth season was its final season as it was cancelled. Series star Patti LuPone was already set to leave the show even before the cancellation announcement so it wasn't a big surprise that the whole show was nixed. The comedy hour moved to 7pm when Life was pulled from the lineup in March. America's Funniest Home Videos and America's Funniest People (with new co-host Tawny Kitaen) were no longer a ratings phenomenon and were moved to a lower pressure timeslot. Replacing at 8pm was Day One, an attempt by ABC to launch a new newsmagazine alongside 20/20 and Primetime Live. This one was hosted by Forrest Sawyer and Diane Sawyer (not related) and only did alright in the ratings but was renewed. For a brief time at the end of the season, Dinosaurs replaced America's Funniest People at 7:30pm. A movie aired at 9pm throughout the season and was ahead of NBC's movie in the ratings but well behind the CBS movie.

CBS	7:00	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	60 Minutes	Murder, She Wrote	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May

CBS made no changes to its hit Sunday lineup with its whole lineup placing in the Top 10. 60 Minutes spent its second straight season at #1 in the Nielsen Ratings while Murder, She Wrote was up in the ratings to its best chart performance since the 1986-87 season. Star Angela Lansbury still made rumblings of wanting to leave and even had developed a sitcom for the network but opted to stay with the long running drama. CBS's movie easily topped competing movies on ABC and NBC most weeks.

NBC	7:00	8:00	9:00	10:00
Sep	Secret Service	I Witness Video	Sunday Night Movie
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mar	Various Programs
Apr
May

After being very ambitious with Sunday nights at the start of the 1991-92 season, NBC played it much safer for the 1992-93 season. They had two new series that had started in late Summer 1992 but both were pretty low priority offerings. At 7pm was Secret Service, a sort of drama/reality hybrid that featured Steven Ford (son of Gerald & Betty Ford) narrating dramatized real-life Secret Service cases. At 8pm was I Witness Video, a show that was adapted from a series of specials that showed real footage of lots of different dramatic events including robberies and natural disasters. The series received lots of criticism for sensationalizing tragedies but it some ways it pre-dated the reality TV/internet video explosion that happened in the next decade. It did a lot better in the ratings than Secret Service and was renewed for a second season. Secret Service moved off Sundays and ended up on Fridays briefly before being cancelled. The 9pm movie was the lowest rated of the Big Three movies.

FOX	7:00	7:30	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30
Sep	Various Programs	The Ben Stiller Show	In Living Color	Roc	Married With Children	Herman’s Head	Flying Blind	Woops!
Oct	Great Scott
Nov
Dec	Batman: The Animated Series	Shaky Ground						The Ben Stiller Show
Jan
Feb								The Edge
Mar	Parker Lewis
Apr
May

In the 1992-93 season, FOX finally expanded to all seven nights but their original night, Sundays, was still the place for a huge amount of their scripted programming. The cornerstone of the night was still Married... With Children, a show as old as the network itself and still the second highest rated show on FOX behind The Simpsons. There was continuity across the season from 8pm-10:30pm. At 8pm was In Living Color. The show continued to do well but was dealing with some issues behind the scenes with all the Wayans brothers leaving over the course of the season. At 8:30pm was Roc. After a one-off live episode the previous season, the series aired all its episodes live for its second season. That hadn't happened with a scripted comedy since the 1950s and wouldn't happen again until NBC's Undateable in 2015. Though the series received some attention from the press, the ratings didn't improve so the series went back to a filmed format the following year. At 9:30pm was the second season of Herman's Head, a show that continued to have a niche following. A new series, Flying Blind, aired at 10pm and was one of many romantic comedies hitting the schedule in the Fall of 1992 (joining CBS's Hearts Afire and Love & War and NBC's Mad About You). This one starred Corey Parker and Tea Leoni as a young couple and lasted the full season but was not renewed for a second season. The 7pm hour did not have as much stability. First up was Great Scott and The Ben Stiller Show. Great Scott starred Tobey Maguire as a 15 year old high school student with an imagination that came to life. It lasted just six episodes, which was really short for FOX at the time. It was replaced by reruns of acclaimed daytime series Batman: The Animated Series and then the final season of Parker Lewis (which lost the Can't Lose part of its title). Parker Lewis had the distinction of being tied for the lowest rated show on TV in the 1992-93 season. The other show in that tie was The Ben Stiller Show, which first aired at 7:30pm and had previously been an MTV series in the 1990-91 season. The sketch comedy series featured an impressive cast including Stiller, Andy Dick, Janeane Garofalo and Bob Odenkirk. The series won an Emmy for Writing but couldn't find an audience. It moved to 10:30pm and then was cancelled. Replacing it at 7:30pm was Shaky Ground, a family sitcom featuring Matt Frewer and a young Jennifer Love Hewitt among others. It was another show that received decent reviews but no audience. Finally, there was a very ambitious show at 10:30pm. Woops! was a post-apocalyptic sitcom about six survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Although the series has been made fun of since (it was included on TV Guide's Worst Shows of All Time list in 2002), it actually received some credit from critics at the time for being inventive and different. That type of premise was rarely seen in comedies in the 1990s so it was definitely something different but it only lasted 10 episodes. It was replaced by Ben Stiller and then Saturday transplant The Edge.

Top Rated Sunday Show of 1992-93: 60 Minutes (#1)

Lowest Rated Sunday Show of 1992-93: The Ben Stiller Show/Parker Lewis (#138)

What would I have watched on Sundays in 1992-93?

Not a whole lot interests me. I may have still been watching Life Goes On and caught Murder, She Wrote once in awhile. I probably would have also tried out some of the FOX sitcoms but I'm not sure I would have stuck with any of them. I would have enjoyed the reruns of Batman: The Animated Series.

Tomorrow: Top 10 Friends Characters!

Next Monday: A look at Mondays in the 1993-94 season!